Dev Diary #44 - Battles

[No Stockpiles Lmao]

Maxes out taxes day 1.
The entire country revolts.
Gee, wonder why?

The entire country starts a revolt timer and then you turn taxes down a bit when it gets close to firing, you mean, and the issue can be avoided entirely if you have enough cash on hand to tide you over for the duration of the war

 

[Haltin]

1. As long as the other generals are stationed at the front and not in battle their units may be borrowed like the garrisons.

Does this mean that there can be multiple battles going on at once?

What happens if one side has free generals with attack orders but the other side's generals are all already in battle? Does the free general wait like a true gentleman, or take the opportunity to dastardly attack some unled garrison for a presumably easy win? Or perhaps even flank or encircle the enemy on some ongoing battle?

 

[MfgLuckbot]

Are there plans to add fortifications you can build ahead of the war? (Historically those mattered a lot for the diplomatic play, and they'd be nice strategically)

Also can we maybe have general "stances" to at least get some minor control over their strategy of wich provinces to pick (aim for ports, go for capital, try encircling)?

 

[Techadept]

yes. and is the last bit supposed to mean something?

Just that the 3 button system has been criticized as "unfun" from the first minute the devs talked about warfare. There have been Threads brainstorming how the system could work with a little more (and interesting) player input like the many other systems of Victoria 3 e.g. politics, diplomacy and your mentioned economics. You don't JUST manage the economy in this game (per description on the steam page), and every "unfun" or irrelevant mechanic should be able to be criticized without saying "but you manage the politics and the economy". Pressing 3 Buttons is NOT fun in my and many others opinion, even if i don't dislike the concept of more automated warfare. (or a more automated economy as i think it should be...)

 

[CorneliusBottomly]

Placeholder graphics; this DD was written ~a month ago, it's different now

pics or it didn't happen

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Just that the 3 button system has been criticized as "unfun" from the first minute the devs talked about warfare. There have been Threads brainstorming how the system could work with a little more (and interesting) player input like the many other systems of Victoria 3 e.g. politics, diplomacy and your mentioned economics. You don't JUST manage the economy in this game (per description on the steam page), and every "unfun" or irrelevant mechanic should be able to be criticized without saying "but you manage the politics and the economy". Pressing 3 Buttons is NOT fun in my and many others opinion, even if i don't dislike the concept of more automated warfare.

as you say, there are many other threads on this.

 

[DreadGrunt]

what do you mean by 'weakest?'

Least enjoyable. The rest of the game looks really, really good to me and I'm very excited for it but I'll be honest I am just utterly uninterested in warfare with this system. I also think there's a bit of problem with the implementation and design of it as the game gets towards the end. In 1840 you'd have a point that most national leaders didn't micro their militaries directly, but in 1915? 1925? It becomes much more common, especially among the ideologies that crop up in the later part of the game.

 

[Thure]

The entire country starts a revolt timer and then you turn taxes down a bit when it gets close to firing, you mean, and the issue can be avoided entirely if you have enough cash on hand to tide you over for the duration of the war

That's... not how law works. I'm pretty sure this wouldn't work at all.

 

[hazard151]

1. Yes that may happen (there are alot of factors that goes into determining the size of the battle; for example a larger front tends to create larger battles)
2. Yes only troops under the generals direct command will inherit his commander modifiers

Larger in what sense?

Number of troops, or length of the front?

And will length of the front relative to the number of troops impact unit size, or will infrastructure/population levels in the state/province the battle is centered on?

The US Civil War saw fighting from the Atlantic coast to Texas and Oklahoma, but the engagements in the Appalachians and the fields of Virginia, Pennsylvania and the engagements along the Mississippi river were generally much larger than what happened across the river in the prairies and mountains of the Trans Mississippi theater.

 

[wilcoxchar]

Critical strategic decisions like "go" or "stop," wow

From the sound of the dev diary you don't have any control over which general and what troops are fighting in any particular battle, the game just grabs some at random.

Max out taxes day one and maybe set up a trade route for guns, very deep

Every time someone reveals that the reason they want war micro is only because they don't want to actually learn how to play the core gameplay loop of the Victoria franchise is another point in favor of less war micro.

 

[Imp0815]

I am on board for the more hands off front lines because they fit the overall game play focus of managing a big nation. But i had hoped for some more details and small square formations marching up and down and shooting at each others, really tiny, like a tilt shift photograph.

 

[No Stockpiles Lmao]

Every time someone reveals that the reason they want war micro is only because they don't want to actually learn how to play the core gameplay loop of the Victoria franchise is another point in favor of less war micro.

I'd like warfare to actually have mechanics to learn. Throwing down a few barracks, picking the latest version of infantry production and telling your army "go get em" isn't much of a system to play with.

 

[wilcoxchar]

And the politics. And Diplomacy. All with seemingly more choices for the player than actual warfare ("3 buttons") which has been criticized from the get go.

As has been already said, politics, economics, and diplomacy are the core gameplay. Therefore, they should take up most of the player's attention throughout the entire course of the game. Combat and battles are not. So they should only have as much granularity and control as to take up their appropriate amount of the player's attention. And what attention they do take up should be primarily tying directly back to the core gameplay mechanics. So actual nitty gritty of managing units in battle should take up only a very small amount of the player's attention, maybe 5% at the very most. Selecting generals and telling them whether to attack or defend does that quite well and leaves the player's attention able to focus on the core gameplay as it should.

 

[wilcoxchar]

I'd like warfare to actually have mechanics to learn. Throwing down a few barracks, picking the latest version of infantry production and telling your army "go get em" isn't much of a system to play with.

If that's all you think you'll be doing during a war, then you really haven't been paying attention to the developer diaries or the AARs.

 

[$ilent_$trider]

Every time someone reveals that the reason they want war micro is only because they don't want to actually learn how to play the core gameplay loop of the Victoria franchise is another point in favor of less war micro.

[Insert GTA San Andreas meme here]

I just want to be able to tell Sherman to do his March to the Sea razing cotton plantations along the way. Or Scott's Anaconda Plan.

As far as I can tell, the current system doesn't allow anything like that and it just might be that the computer randomly does something like this, in like 10^11 iterations of provinces being conquered, one of them might end up similar.

But sure, let's assume everyone complaining about warfare being 3 buttons is just because they want to exploit the AI.

 

[No Stockpiles Lmao]

If that's all you think you'll be doing during a war, then you really haven't been paying attention to the developer diaries or the AARs.

Yeah yeah, I'll be personally building every wheat farm in Russia and picking a law to periodically roll dice to pass too. Wouldn't want warfare to be too involved or I might get distracted I guess.

 

[DreadGrunt]

As has been already said, politics, economics, and diplomacy are the core gameplay. Therefore, they should take up most of the player's attention throughout the entire course of the game. Combat and battles are not. So they should only have as much granularity and control as to take up their appropriate amount of the player's attention. And what attention they do take up should be primarily tying directly back to the core gameplay mechanics. So actual nitty gritty of managing units in battle should take up only a very small amount of the player's attention, maybe 5% at the very most. Selecting generals and telling them whether to attack or defend does that quite well and leaves the player's attention able to focus on the core gameplay as it should.

I feel like this post plays really well into what I said prior about the game running into design problems as it reaches the later parts of the game. If you have a large multinational global war in the 1900's, it's no longer a secondary mechanic of the game. It is entirely possible to have wars on the scale of WW1 and 2 in Victoria, it's insane to say conflicts of that magnitude should take up very little of the players focus. It should be the single most stressful and difficult part of the game and that's just not really possible with these mechanics, I'll just keep clicking a front and adding more generals until either my number runs out or theirs does. That's underwhelming to say the least for the war to end all wars.

 

[Voodoo Lilium]

I feel like this post plays really well into what I said prior about the game running into design problems as it reaches the later parts of the game. If you have a large multinational global war in the 1900's, it's no longer a secondary mechanic of the game. It is entirely possible to have wars on the scale of WW1 and 2 in Victoria, it's insane to say conflicts of that magnitude should take up very little of the players focus. It should be the single most stressful and difficult part of the game and that's just not really possible with these mechanics, I'll just keep clicking a front and adding more generals until either my number runs out or theirs does. That's underwhelming to say the least for the war to end all wars.

Given the time period, shouldn't a Great War be like the climax of the whole game? The equivalent of the End Crisis in Stellaris?

 

[prismaticmarcus]

I'd like warfare to actually have mechanics to learn. Throwing down a few barracks, picking the latest version of infantry production and telling your army "go get em" isn't much of a system to play with.

well, Vic3 isn't much of a war game.

 

[prismaticmarcus]

Yeah yeah, I'll be personally building every wheat farm in Russia and picking a law to periodically roll dice to pass too. Wouldn't want warfare to be too involved or I might get distracted I guess.

now you're getting it. good.